This story from a project manager, Sakhile Malinga, is about a national roll-out of a support contract for contact centre technology in a massive tele-communications company. The objective was to build the support function for all the Call Centres. An outcome was the creation of a National Operational Centre (NOC).
The complexity lay in the fact that it was aligned with software renewals. It had to be completed in a limited time-frame with fixed dates, when support had to be taken over by a new company. The project team consisted of a large sub-contractor component who were responsible to provide resources in the Regional centres that were taken over. It was difficult to manage various stakeholders, different entities and people with different agendas.
Scaling Up
The company that had to take over the support contract, was a fairly small enterprise, therefore the project was quite transformational for them. At the same time they were trying to achieve operational efficiency for the customer.
Existing technical resources that were assigned to the project, needed to skill up. In addition more skilled resources, responsible for technical infrastructure, had to come on board and all had to work together as one team.
Good Management of Resources, Stakeholders and Time
Project resourcing worked out well, despite the difficulty to secure the right people. The stakeholder management was done professionally, especially with C-level stakeholders.
Although the timeline was fixed and deadlines were tight, the project launched on time. The budget that was quoted in the local currency, had to be fixed to compensate for possible loss due to fluctuations in the exchange rate.
The project also created opportunities for staff to grow. Read more ….
What I liked about the book: “The Power of Project Leadership: 7 Keys to Help You Transform from Project Manager to Project Leader” by Susanne Madsen, is the fact that it’s an easy read and it’s applied specifically to project managers. For project managers who are seriously aspiring to become better leaders, the book will help make the transition from project manager to project leader. Looking at project management future trends, more leaders are what organisations need.
Susanne Madsen
It’s organised into 4 chapters and very practical with exercises, reflective questions, check-lists and calls to action. An excellent break-down of the six human needs is given and you are guided towards an in-depth understanding of your own values and beliefs. The seven keys of Leadership are covered in much detail. It guides you to new insights and helps you to become very clear on your intentions.
There are multiple resources spread through-out the book that will help you to change your mind-set. Susanne has a very engaging writing style, she shares useful tools and perspectives from experienced project managers that inspire.
The book has the potential to take you on a journey of transformation from manager to leader, to being conscious about what you want to achieve. It will help you gain clarity on the impact you would like to have on other people, on projects and on the industry. You are guided to compile your own project leadership vision and to determine your action steps.
The book leaves you with the thought: “unleash your project leadership potential, because the world needs your leadership” and that will inspire you to follow through with your action plan.
I would recommend this book to all fellow project management professionals and PMO leaders. For more information about the author, the book and many other resources, visit the Power of Project Leadership website.
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Many definitions of leadershipcan be found and in essence leadership is about people, about change and about achieving goals. This article will explore leadership skills in the digital era.
In an article published on the site, Executives Online, the author, Andrew MacAskill (Feb 18, 2015) identifies “5 Essential Skills of a Future Super Leader” as:
Digital savvy
An engineering mindset
An agile risk taker
A true believe in corporate and social responsibility
Great self-leaders
Digital savvy
A digital savvy leader must have a solid understanding of current technologies that enables a social and global connectivity to be in touch with the changes demanded or needed in society, industry and the market place. These technologies provide the means to create knowledge from an explosion of information to allow for identification of a change or a trend. A leader also uses these tools to drive the change.
Engineering mindset
A leader must have an engineering mindset to apply new technology concepts and trends such as Cloud Computing, Telemetry and Big Data to enable people to innovate within an industry and thereby leading people to change through applied innovation.
Agile risk taker
Risk is inevitable. MacAskill describes that risk can be valuable when a leader practices intelligent risk taking which is sometimes necessary, to prosper. Leaders must be informed and knowledgeable to know when to take calculated risks, when to avoid it and how to manage risks in particular situations. A leader needs to be in touch and digitally connected to be a successful, agile risk taker.
Corporate and social responsibility
Capitalism in its essence cannot be socially responsible however business leaders live in a capitalist world with a growing demand for social responsibility to ensure sustainability. A true future leader within the digital era must therefore apply technology and innovation to create a mindset or psyche of social responsibility. This requires entrenchment of the concepts of sustainability in the organization, with employees and customers alike and in the community.
Self-leaders
Leadership is not instructional. A leader must be a successful business leader, an upstanding community leader and a followed people leader. In business, a leader must apply him or herself to specialize or master a subject, apply his / her expertise in the community and be in touch with emotions, passions and abilities of people to lead.
It is important to remember that leadership skills can be developed. Leaders of today must become future super leaders as MacAskill describes them where the leadership traits and styles are applied within the context of the digital era.
About the Author:
Roelof Louw is an IT professional with a passion for how people, technology and process are applied in business, community and society to improve, drive change and innovate. At present Roelof focuses on applying his career experience in IT management and strategy as well as consultation on Cloud, Managed Services and Computing Services topics. Connect with Roelof on Linkedin or mail him at roelof.louw@gmail.com
PMI has announced changes in the Continuing Certification Requirements (CCR) Program from 1 Dec 2015. This is to answer the demands of the Profession based on the latest research findings in Pulse of the Profession and Project Management Talent Gap.
Employers need project practitioners with leadership and business intelligence skills to support strategic objectives that contribute to the bottom line.
The ideal skill set — the PMI Talent Triangle — is a combination of technical, leadership, and strategic and business management expertise. Aligning with this will ensure that you can develop your career in a more consistent, actionable and meaningful way.
Effective 1 December 2015 the CCR program will be aligned with the employer-identified skills depicted in the PMI Talent Triangle to ensure Project Management Professionals (PMP’s) are equipped to remain relevant in a continually changing business environment and to keep certification holders focused on the needs of the profession.
Please have a look at the Infographic below for a complete break-down of how Professional Development Units (PDU’s) will be maintained as per the update.
Also visit the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) for an explanation of the reasons the CCR program is being updated, what the updates are, when the updates will go into effect, for which activities you can claim PDU’s and how you are impacted.
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Whether you’re an experienced project manager, or a project manager preparing to take the Project Management Professional (PMP®) Exam, here are three tools and techniques you will be using on all your projects.
They are the following:
Responsibility Assignment Matrix (RAM)
Roles and Responsibilities
Resource Breakdown Structure (RBS)
Each of these tools and techniques are discussed within A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) – Fifth Edition, Project Management Institute, Inc., 2013, the globally recognized standard and guide for the project management profession. Let’s look at each of these tools and techniques individually, but also how they interact with each other.
Responsibility Assignment Matrix (RAM)
RAM is a tool used as part of the Plan Human Resource Management process that relates the organizational breakdown structure (OBS) to the work breakdown structure (WBS) and is used to ensure each project activity is assigned a specific resource. A RAM can be used at a high level, a low level, or a combination of both depending on the size and complexity of the project.
One of the most widely known and used type of RAM is the RACI chart. RACI stands for Responsible, Accountable, Consult, and Inform. A RACI chart is simply a table with project activities listed along the left and specific individuals or groups identified across the top. This creates a grid where each activity and individual or group intersect. An R, A, C, or I can be placed in each of the intersecting boxes and at least one accountable individual or group is assigned to each project activity. For large activities there may need to be more than one individual responsible for completing the work. There can be multiple individuals or groups who need to be consulted or informed, but be careful to make sure that each is identified correctly so that not too many unnecessary individuals or groups are being consulted when they may just want to be informed.
Roles and Responsibilities
They are used to define the project role, authority, responsibilities, and competencies required for the role. Clearly defining and documenting the specific Roles and Responsibilities necessary for each project resource are essential ingredients of an effective Human Resource Management Plan. The best way to determine the specific responsibilities required of each role on a project is to document these roles in the form of specific job descriptions that must be matched with specific project team members in order to properly execute the role’s responsibilities.
The four key items to be addressed when developing Roles and Responsibilities are role, authority, responsibility, and competency. Role is the function an assigned person would take on such as designer, engineer, or tester. As part of a role it is also important to define the authority, responsibilities, and boundaries of the role.
Authority is the right to make decisions, sign approvals, apply resources, accept deliverables, and influence others to complete project activities.
Responsibility is the assigned tasks and work the individual is expected to complete. When developing roles and responsibilities it is important that the authority and responsibility match. For example, if an engineer is responsible for making technical decisions it is important they have the authority to implement those decisions.
Competency is the skill set and experience required to complete assigned project activities. If the wrong competency is assigned to a role project progress can be hindered by some activities not being performed.
Resource Breakdown Structure (RBS)
The RBS is a graphical representation of the hierarchical structure of resources by category and resource type where each level is broken down until it is small enough to be used in conjunction with the work breakdown structure (WBS). The goal is to have all resources on a project, not only human resources, linked to specific activities in the WBS in order to plan, monitor, and control the project work. Being able to link resources back to the WBS is essential in ensuring that each activity will be successfully performed.
One thing to remember when taking the PMP Exam is that the acronym RBS has two meanings in the world of project management; Resource Breakdown Structure and Risk Breakdown Structure. If you read the questions carefully and understand the context of the question context (i.e., are they asking about resources or risks?) you should not encounter any problems.
Three R’s on projects
How do the Responsibility Assignment Matrix, Roles and Responsibilities, and Resource Breakdown Structure interact?
The RBS will provide the project manager with information concerning the resources required to complete the project work. Once the RBS is decomposed to the same level as the WBS then identified resources can be linked to specific activities.
A RACI chart can then be developed based on the identified resources in the RBS and the activities that need to be completed in the WBS.
The documented Roles and Responsibilities provides the project manager with specific information such as the responsibility, authority, and competency level of the role that each human resource is assigned to. This also helps the Project Manager complete the RACI chart because it provides them with important information such as making someone responsible or accountable for an activity fitting within the role they fill.
In conclusion, a popular RAM, the RACI chart, is an extremely useful tool used to identify who is accountable or responsible for or needs to be consulted or informed with regard to specific project activities.
Roles and Responsibilities can be thought of as job descriptions that define the role itself along with the authority needed to perform the role, the responsibilities of the role, and the competencies required by the role.
The RBS graphically displays what resources are necessary for successful completion of the project, broken down by both resource category and resource type. For the exam, it is important that you understand not only how and when to use each of these tools and techniques, but also how they interact with each other.
Please visit The PM Prepcast for a very mobile video workshop that will help you prepare for your PMP exam.
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This story from a project manager, Sakhile Malinga, is about a national roll-out of a support contract for contact centre technology in a massive tele-communications company. The objective was to build the support function for all the Call Centres. An outcome was the creation of a National Operational Centre (NOC).
